Lord Liaden

Re: [storytime] Birth of RAVEN Here is another element to the new RAVEN which draws inspiration from the older material, but takes it in IMHO a fresh new direction: RAVEN Infiltration and Subversion Corps (RISC). Like RAVEN's elite combat force, the Praetorian Guard, RISC is a specialized corps of superhuman operatives. Unlike the Guard, however, the members of RISC are chosen for powers and abilities which emphasize subtlety, deception and manipulation, including the shape-shifting spy and assassin Masquerade, the cyberkinetic "super-hacker" Cybermind, and the mind-controlling Esper. While the Praetorians are known throughout RAVEN, the inspirational symbols of superhuman superiority, the very existence of RISC is known only to the highest leadership of RAVEN. If the Guard is a sword, RISC is a scalpel. It exists to spread distrust, foment conflict, and eliminate opposition which cannot be practically destroyed through force. It specializes in acquiring closely guarded damaging information, and in spreading disinformation; in manipulating or coercing people into performing "services" for RAVEN; and in controlling or impersonating individuals who are obstacles to RAVEN's objectives so as to destroy their credibility and effectiveness. When RISC performs a theft or assassination it is either of the "locked room" variety, unexplainable without knowledge of the superpowers used, or else it leaves deliberate clues leading to a predetermined scapegoat.

Re: Cyberpunk resources? It's called Robot Warriors, and it's a pretty cool little game. A trifle dated in terms of the source material (mid-1980's), and it's one of the pre-Fourth Edition HERO games with its own unique iteration of the HERO ruleset. The whole thing is self-contained in the one book. OTOH our colleague Chris Goodwin has created an inspired update/integration of the original RW rules with Fifth Edition: http://home.comcast.net/~archer7/rw2hero.html

Re: CHAMPIONS UNIVERSE II - What Do You Want To See? It's true that Grond is still being referenced in CU books like a Hulk-level powerhouse, when there are several CU bricks who could take him apart. The Ultimate Brick boosted him a little, but not that far. FWIW in my own campaign I grafted most of the character sheet for Fracas, from Galactic Champions, onto Grond. STR 120 seems pretty respectable for him.

Re: Just For Fun: Cartoon Network All Star Team Ups I know it's dating me, but since these shows have been rerun on modern cartoon channels: I've always wanted to see a teamup of the great 1960's Hannah-Barbera space superheroes - Space Ghost, the Herculoids, and the Galaxy Trio - against some major interstellar menace.

Re: 4e Champions Question But the one in Ultimate Mentalist was significantly more powerful.

Re: [storytime] Birth of RAVEN Or is that just what Menton wants him to think? :eg: (I'm getting dizzy.)

Re: THE ULTIMATE MENTALIST -- What Do *You* Want To See? Presence Attacks have so many similarities to Mental Powers, and in fact could be given the same SFX in some characters, that the differences and interactions could justifiably be explored in this book. It's something I've been asking for for years. IIRC Steve explored more about PA in a Digital Hero column, but that should really be brought forward in an "official" book.

Re: Build Me A Villain Team My mistake. His CKC "Campaign Use" text suggests that "He works well with groups, whether as a leader or follower." Not that he had done so in continuity. I misremembered, sorry.

Re: Build Me A Villain Team As I've said before, very cool group. Sadly, the request from the Bennie is for official 5E CU villains. I'll tell you this, though: since the CU has Kings of Edom and Elder Worms, there's no reason why it can't have the Worm Scepter, so I say bring back The Seven Horsemen! Now there was a scary pack o' mofo's!

Re: Build Me A Villain Team

Re: Build Me A Villain Team

Re: THE ULTIMATE MENTALIST -- What Do *You* Want To See? Don't have to. I've been a quarter-mile downwind of my brother's socks.

Re: Build Me A Villain Team

Re: Build Me A Villain Team

Re: Build Me A Villain Team The leadership issue is a telling one. Holocaust has everthing he needs to be a great leader/sponsor of a world-conquering team: tremendous power, intellect, charisma, vast wealth, plenty of political clout. If only he weren't such an a$$. Trouble is, the next most appropriate candidate, Zorran, isn't much better, being massively arrogant and condescending. I ran into the same issue using these villains as part of my new RAVEN. I think anyone incorporating them into a group would have to be willing to stick just to the letter of their Psych Lims, and tone down the behavior described in their flavor text. Otherwise the group would never last.

Re: Build Me A Villain Team Wait a minute, don't the Crowns of Krim count as a "world-beater villain squad?" At least as long as Dark Seraph is around.

Re: Build Me A Villain Team Now that I think of it, if Tesseract can't be on the main combat team, put her on the reserve list instead of Esper. She'd still make for excellent backup on non-killing missions, not to mention phenomenal team transport. I should note that I'm avoiding drawing on villains that are already part of teams or organizations. Otherwise Viperia would already be here.

Re: Build Me A Villain Team Excellent! In that case - assuming you're not willing to make allowances for Tesseract, who remains my first choice - please give the female spot on the combat team to Raya de Plata, a world-class speedster with the right attitude for this team. If you really want your superheroes to tremble, replace Jade Phoenix with Taipan.

Re: Cyberpunk resources? It's always great when you don't end up feeling like a putz for recommending something.

Re: Build Me A Villain Team Interesting. I was just thinking along similar lines for my reworking of RAVEN. No "major mastermind villains," huh? Would that include Holocaust? He's not included with the other mastermind villains in CKC, and he has a precedent for hiring groups of villains to assist his plans for world conquest, so if he isn't excluded I'd say he's a natural to lead this team. Assuming Holocaust is a go, I'd add to the core combat team: Mechassassin - elite class field commander; Jade Phoenix - one of the deadliest martial artists around; Gargantua - among the top bricks in the CU; Zorran the Artificer - powerful and versatile sorceror, and his magitech could be very useful; Now it gets tricky. We still need a spot for a woman, and I'd really like to use Tesseract - she has the desire for world conquest, and her powers would be extremely helpful to a team - but your "willling to rack up a superhero body count" proscription clashes directly with her Code Vs. Killing. As a matter of fact, I'm having trouble finding any combat-powerful supervillainess that doesn't have CVK. For that reason I'd probably go with Stingray, but that's under protest. For the reserve members, I would choose Masquerade and Esper, both well suited to covert operations, with no qualms about who gets hurt.

Re: Which Villain Do You Want to Play? 'Fraid not, Baron. Menton in the 5E Champs Uni went AWOL from the Doctor's service while DD pretended to be dead. Prof. Muerte is officially dead, I'm afraid. Scorpia and Feur (now "Feurmacher") betrayed and offed him.

Re: Cyberpunk resources? Cool. In that case I'll just direct you to stuff that I'm aware of. First off, hit the link down in my signature, and then scroll down to the listing for CYBERPUNK 2020 (lots of converted cyberware and bioware), and the listing for SHADOWRUN (mentioned earlier on the thread), with more of the same plus integration of magic into the cyberpunk setting. I would also recommend Michael "Susano" Surbrook's excellent Kazei Five anime-style cyberpunk setting sourcebook. Although it's for Fourth Edition HERO, it translates easily to Fifth. It's available from the PDF section of Hero Games's Online Store, for a mere $9.95. Susano also has substantial samples from the book on his personal website. I particularly recommend his simplified Skill-based netrunning system, since it doesn't sound like you'll be making that a major part of your campaign.

Re: Changing to Heroic identity

Re: Changing to Heroic identity When you think about it, no character with a Secret ID can change willy-nilly. A character with a costumed identity would need to find someplace out of sight to change into costume, which BTW requires at least one full Phase; and the character gets no cost break for that. However, the definition of OIHID in the rulebook requires, as a minimum, one full Phase for the change to take place, and since you have that covered - and I presume the normal form is as vulnerable as any person on the street - it's probably sufficient to justify the Lim. Other difficulties or means to stop the change can be included or exchanged for that extra time, but aren't mandatory.

Re: Dyson Sphere (shell) - Dysonica Anyone? We've had some fruitful discussions on this topic, and some useful links have also been posted. Check out these threads: http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=45189 http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36890 http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=37430